I hereby pledge that, if elected to represent the people of South Dakota, I will never vote to shut down our government, or to place our government in default, in order to force it to act, or to prevent it from acting, on unrelated issues.

That is my pledge to South Dakota.

I am pledging nothing more than that, should you choose to hire me, I will do the job for which I have been hired.

It is sad that the utter irresponsibility of so many politicians makes such a pledge necessary. But when our government is shut down, and our nation threatened with default, because a small minority did not get their way on an entirely unrelated political issue, citizens have every right to ask those they would hire to promise that they will do their job.

I make that promise today and hope others seeking to properly represent their country will join me.